LANSING – The Muskegon Correctional Facility will still lose all of its Michigan prisoners as planned, but will take in as many as 1,000 prisoners from Pennsylvania early next year rather than closing, officials announced Monday.
The imported inmates are set to begin arriving in February and could remain for as long as three years. Virginia is expected to receive about the same number of inmates from Pennsylvania, reports said.
Mel Grieshaber, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, said the move was a boon for his members, who now should maintain nearly all their jobs as the Michigan inmates are moved to other facilities.
“It sounds like it will be a seamless transition,” Grieshaber said.
But he said it was disappointing that the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility would remain closed. The prison was for some time considered as a possible site for housing federal detainees currently in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“We’re disappointed that the Standish correctional facility was not included (in the Pennsylvania plan), but we continue to be hopeful that some other state would consider Standish or some other facility that’s been closed,” he said.
And he said the move is needed to keep the prisons available for Michigan should inmate populations begin to rise. He said it also gives the union a period of time to evaluate the prisoner early release policy.
“We think in regard to letting these prisoners out the jury’s still out on that. We have concerns about the types of prisoners that are being let out,” he said.
The move is a reversal of about a decade ago when Michigan was sending inmates to Virginia to deal with a rapidly rising prison population.
Department of Corrections officials did not return a message seeking comment.
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